Yes, there is a drought forcing California farmers to leave fields fallow or, in extreme cases, tear out orchard crops.

But there has also been strong demand for nut crops - including walnuts, pistachios and almonds - and the resulting high price and profits have led to a surge of new plantings, industry experts said.

Federal farm officials recently estimated at least 48,000 new acres of almonds were planted in the year beginning in July 2013, based on a survey of almond tree nursery sales.

That's a 37 percent jump from the 35,000 acres planted in the previous year, and it is certainly an underestimate of the actual plantings, the National Agricultural Statistics Service said. Its first-time survey received responses from eight of 10 known almond tree nurseries, and only the reported tree sales were used in its estimates.

It's also nearly double the average gain of 27,000 acres of almonds coming into production annually over the past 10 years.

The surge in plantings was prompted by a spike in almond prices, said David Phippen, principal at Travaille & Phippen, an almond grower and packer in Manteca. "It's been exceedingly profitable in the past year," he said. "People are always chasing price."

Similar large gains in new plantings were seen in 2004-06, also a time when nut prices jumped sharply, according to federal records.

While there are a lot of new acreage, it's not too surprising, agreed Phil Brumley, an Escalon almond and rice grower, who also works as a farm consultant.

"The last several years the nut business has been profitable, and people need to find a way to invest those funds. One way is to plant new orchards," he said.

California's drought may also be a contributing factor.

Brumley said some farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, most heavily affected by water curtailment, are shifting operations

"You've got people that are migrating to areas that have more bountiful water," he said.

And when they do, they choose crops that seem to offer the best returns, such as nut crops and perhaps winegrapes.

Given that California's almond industry today totals about 1 million acres, 48,000 acres of new plantings is a large number but not out of scale, said David Baker, grower relations director for Blue Diamond, the giant almond cooperative.

Replacement plantings, old orchards removed and replanted, total 22,000 to 25,000 acres a year. And another about 10,000 acres of trees go into the ground to replace trees that die in existing orchards, Baker said.

And the annual growth in almond consumption is likely more than the gain in new plantings.

If (it was) 10 years ago, we would have all have said, 'Wow, that's a lot of trees.' Now we look at it: 'Wow, we need every acre of it."

Indeed, noted Brent Holtz, San Joaquin County director for University of California Cooperative Extension and a tree crop expert, California provides 80 percent of the world's almond supply. And there's growing demand from the emerging nation markets, especially India and China.

"While it may seems like we have a glut of almonds here, we're a unique area with a Mediterranean climate and water, (so) we can grow this crop. So we're basically supplying the world supply of almonds and walnuts and pistachios," he said.